DIY Foundation and Novosbed Harmony

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

My wife and I recently purchased a Novosbed Harmony. I did a lot of research on this site, as well as on Sleep Like The Dead. Just wanted to give a little something back by sharing some of what we did.

Here’s some of the considerations that went into our thinking:

  1. Wanted something plush, really soft.
  2. $1000 max budget
  3. Won’t sleep too “hot”
  4. Made of good materials / not “cheap” / dense enough foam
  5. Positive consumer reviews

We tested a lot of things in stores, and liked the plush Sealy Posturpedic. After lots of reading, eventually came to the conclusion that, long-term, a memory foam was a better choice than springs. However, most of the foam ones we tested in the store felt too hard. In fact, if you look at this chart at Sleep Like The Dead, most of the foam mattresses listed are at least medium firmness to firm.

Then I was at a Mattress Warehouse and tested a Serta iComfort Savant – my kinda mattress. Suuuper soft. But at $1800, out of my budget. I again went back to the chart (above), and came up with Bed In A Box PacBed Original as being “medium-to-soft” and also within my budget (and extremely well reviewed I might add).

But like some other readers I found out there, I was concerned at the density of the foam in the PacBed Original. Its 3lbs foam is on the lighter side. Also, there’s not a distinct gel layer, although they say their foam is gel infused. I really have no idea, and I certainly have nothing against Bed In A Box – I very nearly bought a bed from them. I’m just saying, it was a judgement call based on circumstantial evidence. I felt like there might be a better option out there in the sub-$1000 space.

I stumbled upon Novosbed.com as being one of the “reputable brands not shown” in the chart (linked above) on Sleep Like The Dead. I was immediately drawn to them because all their beds are (only just) below $1000 AND they feature not one, but two mattress models that are plush/soft (the Aria and Harmony). In their marketing material, they directly compare their Harmony mattress to a Sealy iComfort Savant, which was my target mattress. So that really caught my eye. The Harmony has a dedicated gel layer on top, which made me feel better about the issue of whether the mattress would “sleep hot”. And also the foam weight is higher than that of the PacBed Original from Bed In A Box. Novosbed has the same return policy as Bed In A Box, so I also felt good about that, as a first-time-foam-mattress-buyer.

Here’s my only dings against Novosbed:

  1. Their foundation is expensive, but also looks “cheap”. I don’t want a folding foundation. I really liked the looks of the foundation sold by Bed In A Box. I just didn’t want to pay $245 for it.

  2. When I purchased the Harmony on novosbed.com, my bank hit me with a $7.83 international banking fee. Turns out Novosbed’s finances are in Canada – a fact not really advertised on their website, where it says everything is “Made in USA”. But I contacted Novosbed’s support, and to their credit, they immediately refunded the $7.83 back to my card.

I looked for a good foundation for a really long time, including looking at probably every link from this forum that was related to foundations. All the KD foundations just struck me as cheap looking and/or too expensive for what they are.

Futhermore, Novosbed has fairly specific guidelines for what the foundation should be, or else you risk voiding the warranty. “Slatted foundations must have slats no more than 3 inches wide, spaced no more than 3 inches apart.”

In the end, we were convinced by this form post here, and decided to make our own foundation, scaled down to fit a queen-sized mattress. Here are some of those results (images embedded, linked from Imgur):

Opening up the Novosbed Harmony:

2

Hi jonmills,

Thanks for taking the time to share such detailed feedback about your research and the thinking behind your final choice … and of course the pictures of your DIY foundation … I appreciate it.

I think you did a great job on the foundation.

Most of all … congratulations on your new sleeping system :slight_smile:

Phoenix

3

So I wanted to come back and write a quick follow-up post. After three months, my wife and I decided to return our Novosbed mattress.

Although we purchased their ‘Harmony’ model, which was supposed to be extremely plush/soft, it was just too hard for us. (Novosbed claims the mattress is 12 ILD…not that you can compare that to Latex ILD ratings). I’ve laid on a 26 ILD Latex mattress from Pure Latex Bliss, and it felt much softer to me than a Novosbed Harmony @ 12 ILD.

I think this mattress is probably great for heavier people, but my wife and I are pretty light. I’m about 165 lbs @ 5’11". She’s 5’9" and weighs like 140 lbs. I felt like we hardly made impressions in this mattress. You certainly don’t sink into it. I really wanted to love it, but by the second month I was waking up with lower back pain every morning. I’m a side sleeper, and this was just throwing my spine out of alignment. My wife complained of shoulder pain that we couldn’t alleviate even by getting her a high loft pillow.

I do want to say, however, that I’m satisfied with the quality of the mattress. It certainly is well made. The construction of the cover was quite nice.

Lastly, the customer service at Novosbed is top notch. Caitlin and Gaille processed my return without any fuss. There was no cost for me to send it back, and a man with a delivery truck came and got it. Never would have thought a mattress return would be so simple.

Anyway…I’ve had time to do way more reading on this site. The Mattress Underground is just an incredible resource. I’ve been to half the mattress stores in the Durham-Chapel-Hill (NC) area, and two minutes into a conversation with salespeople I could usually tell that I knew more about mattresses now than they did.

Onward and upward. I’m purchasing a Latex solution…parts from different places. I’ll write a post about it when it arrives and I’ve had time to try it out.

4

Hi jonmills,

Thanks for the update.

I’m sorry to hear that your mattress didn’t work out as well as you hoped but it’s great to see that Novosbed gave you such great service and made the return process so painless.

You’re certainly correct that ILD numbers for slow response materials don’t compare in any way to the same ILD numbers for fast response materials. With memory foam ILD is not particularly meaningful anyway because the ILD will change with temperature, humidity, and the length of time it is compressed and the testing method to rate ILD produces a completely different range of results with memory foam than it does with fast response materials. I should also mention that a mattress itself doesn’t have an ILD … only the individual foam layers inside it.

As sad as it is … I think that most of the members here that have spent a few hours on the site have quickly discovered that they know more meaningful information than most of the salespeople that are selling mattresses in the mainstream industry.

You’ve probably seen this but just in case … the better options and possibilities I’m aware of in the Durham / Chapel Hill NC area are listed in post #6 here.

Phoenix

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jonmills - what did you end up going with? We also recently purchased a harmony bed and we shocked at its firmness. In fact, when we ordered it I told my wife “it’ll be way to soft” - and when it arrived and we had our first night sleep on it (after letting it expand for 24 hours), it was hard. WE spend the next 7 days sleeping on it and it was still super hard. Much harder than the comparison of the Sealy or Tempur Pedic they have on their site.

I spoked to Novosbed who suggested we keep sleeping on it and “breaking it in”.

Is that normal? A break-in period for a soft foam mattress?

It seems silly to think that I need to spend another 4-5 weeks sleeping on a mattress that is giving us back and hip pain in order to break it in. Something doesnt seem right.

6

Yeah, I hear ya. We kept our Novosbed for two months I think. It never got softer. We were waking up with sore shoulders and hips from it.

We ended up going with an all Latex solution, from multiple vendors.

First, we got a base from Spindle Mattress. It was the 7" “blue shoal”. It’s got two layers of 3" thick Dunlop latex in it. We custom ordered it so that the lowest layer was firm, and the upper layer was medium-firm. It was very affordable.

Then we went to Brooklyn Bedding and got a Talalay Latex 3" topper to go on top of the base layers from Spindle Mattress. At first, we ordered the topper with an ILD rating of 19. That is way, way too soft. Don’t go that soft. I felt like I was drowning in it. So we ended up exchanging that for the “Medium” 28 ILD Talalay topper from Brooklyn Bedding.

I’m reasonably pleased with the final result. Most nights I sleep really well. Having the topper there changes the feel a lot though. The firmness is about right. But I do get that sensation of the Latex “pushing back” at me, which you’ll find some folks around the forum complaining about. It doesn’t always bother me, but sometimes it does.

If I had it to do over again, I think I might have just gotten the 10" Abscond from Spindle Mattress. They will let you mix and match the layers, so you can go with firm/medium/soft if you want, or firm/medium/medium, or whatever.

7

Hi Vanman2014,

Yes this is normal for any mattress (not just memory foam). There is more about the break in and adjustment period for a memory foam mattress and some of the other factors that can also affect firmness in post #2 here. You can see an example in post #3 here of another member that purchased a different memory foam mattress and discovered that even a fan blowing on the mattress (which is something that most people wouldn’t suspect could be an issue) made a big difference in the firmness of the memory foam.

Most manufacturers are well aware that how a new mattress feels will change over the course of the first few weeks so they usually have a minimum time frame before they will accept returns to make sure that their customers give a new mattress a reasonable trial before returning or exchanging it.

Phoenix

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Thanks jonmills - I appreciate your input. I actually live in Vancouver, BC and it looks as though Spindle may not deliver to me based on their website. I’ve visited the link herehttps://forum.mattressunderground.com/t/vancouver-bc for other mattress ideas and may need to get out some more and test out some beds.

Phoenix - Can you recommend any scratch/dent places (like colonial or trail appliances) that might have beds at a decent price? I may be going back to the drawing board and testing out pocket coils and memory foam once again. :frowning:

ps - sorry to hijack the thread.

9

Hi VAnMan2014,

Sorry … I don’t keep any records for mattress liquidators because the risk of buying a used mattress that is either a comfort or warranty return is just too high and it would be very rare that they would know anything about the quality of the materials inside their mattresses so I wouldn’t recommend any of them other than as a “buyer beware” purchase. For those that would consider them then a google search will usually bring up some in your area. Craigslist or Kijiji would be other sources for used mattresses as well.

There is more about buying a mattress from a liquidator here and here and here and more about some things you can check for if you are considering buying a used mattress in post #2 here as well.

Phoenix